Posted on 12/13/2024 2:25:02 AM PST by Timber Rattler
The Kremlin said Friday that its "prerequisites" for holding peace talks with Ukraine had not yet been met, as speculation over a possible ceasefire mounts ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump coming to power in January.
"We don't want a ceasefire, we want peace, after our conditions are met and all our goals are achieved," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that the "prerequisites" needed to open negotiations were not in place.
(Excerpt) Read more at barrons.com ...
“Trump’s not going to like that.”
Maybe, but it won’t matter. Trump didn’t like it when Zelensky insulted him and Vance, and then interfered in our election to help Harris and the Dems. Trump is still talking to Zelensky. If Russia is losing the war and its economy is collapsing like everyone says, they’ll take a deal in a red hot minute.
[Excerpt:]
1. There are two Minsk Agreements, not just one. The first “Minsk Protocol” was signed on September 5, 2014. It mainly consists of a commitment to a ceasefire along the existing line of contact, which Russia never respected. By February 2015, fighting had intensified to a level that led to renewed calls for a ceasefire, and ultimately led to the second Minsk Agreement, signed on February 12, 2015. Even after this agreement, Russian-led forces kept fighting and took the town of Debaltseve six days later. The two agreements are cumulative, building on each other, rather than the second replacing the first. This is important in understanding the importance, reflected in the first agreement, of an immediate ceasefire and full monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including on the Ukraine-Russia border, as fundamental to the subsequent package of agreements.
2. Russia is a Party to the Minsk Agreements. The original Minsk signatories are Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia is a protagonist in the war in Ukraine and is fully obliged to follow the deal’s terms. Despite that, however, Russia untruthfully claims not to be a party and only a facilitator — and that the real agreements are between Ukraine and the so-called “separatists,” who call themselves the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics (LPR and DPR), but are in fact Russian supplied and directed.
3. The LPR and DPR are not recognized as legitimate entities under the Minsk Agreements. The signatures of the leaders of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples’ Republics were added after they had already been signed by Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE. They were not among the original signatories, and indeed Ukraine would not have signed had their signatures been part of the deal. There is nothing in the content or format of the Agreement that legitimizes these entities and they should not be treated as negotiating partners in any sense. Russia alone controls the forces occupying parts of eastern Ukraine.
4. Russia is in violation of the Minsk Agreements. The deals require a ceasefire, withdrawal of foreign military forces, disbanding of illegal armed groups, and returning control of the Ukrainian side of the international border with Russia to Ukraine, all of this under OSCE supervision. Russia has done none of this. It has regular military officers as well as intelligence operatives and unmarked “little green men” woven into the military forces in Eastern Ukraine. The LPR and DPR forces are by any definition “illegal armed groups,” that have not been disbanded. The ceasefire has barely been respected by the Russian side for more than a few days at a time.
5. Russian-led forces prevent the OSCE from accomplishing its mission in Donbas as spelled out in the Minsk Agreements. It is an unstated irony in Vienna — understood by every single diplomatic mission and member of the international staff — that Russia approves the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine when it votes in Vienna, but then blocks implementation of that same mission on the ground in Ukraine. Because Russia is a member of the OSCE, and the SMM wants to preserve what little access it has to the occupied territories, the mission is guarded in what it says about ceasefire violations and restrictions on its freedom of movement. Privately, however, they acknowledge that some 80% of such violations and restrictions come from the Russian-controlled side of the border, and those that occur on the Ukrainian side are largely for safety reasons (e.g., avoiding mined approaches to bridges.)
6. Ukraine has implemented as much of Minsk as can reasonably be done while Russia still occupies its territory. The agreements require political measures on Ukraine’s side, including a special status for the region, an amnesty for those who committed crimes as part of the conflict, local elections, and some form of decentralization under the Ukrainian constitution. But the form of these measures is not specified, and Ukraine has already passed legislation addressing every point. It has passed – and extended with renewals – legislation on special status and amnesty, and already has legislation on the books governing local elections. It has passed constitutional amendments. The Minsk Agreements do not require Ukraine to grant autonomy to Donbas, or to become a federalized state. It is Russia’s unique interpretation that the measures passed by Ukraine are somehow insufficient, even though the agreements do not specify what details should be included, and Ukraine has already complied with what is actually specified to the degree it can.
What is lacking in Ukraine’s passage of these political measures is not the legislation per se, but implementation — which Russia itself prevents by continuing to occupy the territory. For example, international legal norms would never recognize the results of elections held under conditions of occupation, yet that is exactly what Russia seeks by demanding local elections before it relinquishes control. Moreover, the elections would not be for positions in the illegitimate LPR and DPR “governments” established under Russian occupation, but for the legitimate city councils, mayors, and oblast administrations that exist under Ukrainian law. Who would vote in such elections? Ukrainian law says all displaced citizens should vote. But would Russian occupation authorities allow this? These are matters for resolution under international supervision – not for Russia to dictate terms.
Nonsense. That's like saying that a victim should accept only a partial rape.
Then Fight to the last Ukie Male!
I think the US offering cheap LNG to Europe should bring Russia to the negotiating table.
Renewing the Russian gas contract permitting gas to flow through Ukraine would benefit everyone. That's what SHOULD happen. Stop with the climate fix cr**..It doesn't work.
Agreed, however, ramping up production to the needed quantities will take some time.
Trump will decide...not Putin.
“That’s what SHOULD happen.”
You are right. That’s what should happen. But it won’t until the war is ended. My statement has nothing to do with climate. It has to do with prosecuting the end to this needless conflict by making it impossible for either country to fund their war efforts. Our use of petroleum and gas as a weapon to bring our enemies to their knees or at the minimum get them to the negotiating table worked when Trump was President last time. It will work again.
“Agreed, however, ramping up production to the needed quantities will take some time.”
I concur.
Nonsense. That's like saying that a victim should accept only a partial rape.
So now you and your globaloid enablers get the FULL rape... with no lube.
If both sides want to play games, than the Slavs can continue to slaughter eachother while we wash out hands of it
Ukraine did accept the Minsk accords, and, among other things, those accords called for free and fair supervised elections in Russian controlled regions of Ukraine, which, of course, the Russians never allowed.
In Vlad the Invader's December 2021 ultimatums to NATO and the US, he did not mention Minsk in his demands.
Then, on February 22, 2022 Putin declared Minsk "dead", believing the West generally and the US especially was too weak to resist his "Special Military Operation", February 24, 2022.
As for who, exactly, is now "nearly defeated", Russians have suffered over half a million casualties since the spring of 2022 for gains of no significant new Ukrainian territories.
Ukrainians claim their casualties run about 1/3 those of Russia and similar estimates are confirmed by most independent sources.
Russian claims of millions of dead Ukrainians are confirmed by nobody outside the Russian Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda.
Unfortunately, LNG is not cheap compared to piped-in natural gas.
LNG is about three times the price per BTU delivered in Europe.
I suspect that Russians well understand they can never sell their natural gas to Europe again, and will have to find other customers -- and build huge new pipelines -- to places like China or India.
“Ukraine should have accepted the Minsk accords. Millions dead and hundreds of Billions wasted later and they are nearly defeated.”
ABSOLUTELY, and considering that the former Western leaders (Merkel, in particular, Hollande, and even Bush Jr. somewhat) all admitted that Minsk 2 was a fraud, designed to buy time to arm-up before re-starting the Ukraine war. The problem for the Neocons was that it also gave Russia time to arm-up, as the Neocons and Ukrainians are learning the hard way.
Probably the DUMBEST move yet, made by the Neocons. They should have let Crimea go and forced Ukraine to treat their Russians as human beings.
Typical Soviet/Russian negotiating position.
They risk a lot if they push Trump to put the hammer to them.
I expect that when Inauguration Day rolls around, they will find some way that it is acceptable to at least talk. Resources are running low for Russia, and their economy is heading over a cliff. They don’t have a lot of time left to change tracks. If they blow their first try negotiating with Trump, he can wait a few months, and hit them with the economic equivalent of the kitchen sink, to soften them up. Time is not on Russia’s side, if the West is against them. Especially Trump.
Russia’s initial objective seems to have been to install a puppet Government into a titularly independent Ukraine. They will likely seek an outcome that sets the conditions for them to buy and cheat their way into political control of Ukraine, after the dust clears on a ceasefire or settlement.
98% of the nation couldn't give a hoot how the war in Ukraine ends so long as we stop wasting money on it and focus on solving this country's problems.
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